The Evolution of Pitching in Major League Baseball

The first chapters reach back to the first known ?batting contests? in Egypt 5,000 years ago and bring readers to a popular 18th century English game called rounders, which evolved into organized baseball in 19th century America. The book then paces through the changes in rules that helped mold baseball into its modern form, and discusses innovators like James Creighton and Asa Brainard, early stars like Cy Young and Walter Johnson, and modern day standouts such as Roger Clemens and Kerry Wood. The book explores rule changes, adaptations to pitching and pitching strategies, and the effect of pitcher injuries and conditioning, among other influences. Fourteen former major league players comment on the game. An appendix gives stats for major league starting pitchers with comparisons by era, those with more than 5,000 career innings pitched, relief pitchers, and their single season save records. Another table takes a look at the increase in major league home runs from 1919 to 2004.